The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Archaeology
The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Archaeology

Author: Bethany Walker

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-10-27

Total Pages: 1024

ISBN-13: 0199987882

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Born from the fields of Islamic art and architectural history, the archaeological study of the Islamic societies is a relatively young discipline. With its roots in the colonial periods of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, its rapid development since the 1980s warrants a reevaluation of where the field stands today. This Handbook represents for the first time a survey of Islamic archaeology on a global scale, describing its disciplinary development and offering candid critiques of the state of the field today in the Central Islamic Lands, the Islamic West, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. The international contributors to the volume address such themes as the timing and process of Islamization, the problems of periodization and regionalism in material culture, cities and countryside, cultural hybridity, cultural and religious diversity, natural resource management, international trade in the later historical periods, and migration. Critical assessments of the ways in which archaeologists today engage with Islamic cultural heritage and local communities closes the volume, highlighting the ethical issues related to studying living cultures and religions. Richly illustrated, with extensive citations, it is the reference work on the debates that drive the field today.

The Archaeology of Islam
The Archaeology of Islam

Author: Timothy Insoll

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Published: 1999-01-26

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9780631201144

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This book examines the archaeological implications of Islam as a force which can act upon all areas of life.

Settlement and Urbanization in Early Islamic Palestine, 7th-11th Centuries
Settlement and Urbanization in Early Islamic Palestine, 7th-11th Centuries

Author: Hagit Nol

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-04-01

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 1000568989

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This volume follows the changes that occurred in central Palestine during the longue duree between the 7th to the 11th centuries. That region offers a unique micro-history of the Islamicate world, providing the opportunity for intensive archaeological research and rich primary sources. Through a careful comparison between the archaeological records and the textual evidence, a new history of Palestine and the Islamicate world emerges – one that is different than that woven from Arabic geographies and chronicles alone. The book highlights the importance of using a variety of sources when possible and examining each type of source in its own context. The volume spans ancient technologies and daily life, ancient agriculture, and the perception of place by ancient authors. It also explores the shift of settlements and harbors in central Palestine, as well as the gradual development of a new metropolis, al-Ramla. Settlement and Urbanization in Early Islamic Palestine will be of particular interest to students and scholars of the history of Islam or the history of Palestine, or anyone working more generally in the methodology of historical research and integrating texts and archaeology.

Crossroads to Islam
Crossroads to Islam

Author: Yehuda D. Nevo

Publisher: Prometheus Books

Published: 2003-06

Total Pages: 470

ISBN-13: 1615923292

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In this controversial exploration of the early history of Islam, archaeologist Yehuda D. Nevo and researcher Judith Koren present a revolutionary theory of the origins and development of the Islamic state and religion. Whereas most works on this subject derive their view of the history of this period from the Muslim literature, Crossroads to Islam also examines important types of evidence hitherto neglected: the literature of the local (Christian) population, archaeological excavations, numismatics, and especially rock inscriptions. These analyses lay the foundation for a radical view of the development of Islam.According to Nevo and Koren, the evidence suggests that the Arabs were in fact pagan when they assumed power in the regions formerly ruled by the Byzantine Empire. They contend that the Arabs took control almost without a struggle, because Byzantium had effectively withdrawn from the area long before. After establishing control, the new Arab elite adopted a simple monotheism influenced by Judaeo-Christianity, which they encountered in their newly acquired territories, and gradually developed it into the Arab religion. Not until the mid-8th century was this process completed.This interpretation of the evidence corroborates the view of other scholars, who on different grounds propose that Islam and the canonized version of the Koran were preceded by a long period of development. This new view turns on its head the traditional history of the rise of Islam, which claims that Islam began with Muhammad in Mecca and Medina around 622; then spread throughout Arabia under his charismatic leadership; and finally, after Muhammad''s death (632), inspired his followers to conquer widespread territories both in the East and West. By contrast, Nevo and Koren suggest that the rise of the Arab state created a need for a state religion, eventually called Islam.This absorbing and controversial rethinking of Islam''s early history is must reading for students and scholars of Islamic history and anyone interested in the origins of the world''s second largest religion.

Archaeology, Politics and Islamicate Cultural Heritage in Europe
Archaeology, Politics and Islamicate Cultural Heritage in Europe

Author: David Govantes Edwards

Publisher: Equinox Publishing (UK)

Published: 2022

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781781797891

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Archaeology, Politics and Islamicate Cultural Heritage in Europe responds to the wishes of specialists in the history and archaeology of Islamicate societies in Europe to explore the integration of these societies into historical narratives. In order to deal with the multiple implications and wide ramifications of the subject matter, the book offers a collection of papers that cover a broad range of topics, including historiography, gender and family studies, material culture, historical and contemporary identities, historical heritage management, and archaeological theory, while paying attention to the peculiarities of the record in European regions in which Islamicate societies have played a major historical role (and others in which this role may not be quite so obvious, such as Scandinavia). These wide-ranging subjects find their commonality in the book's aim of challenging the dominant simplifying narratives and their stress on interruption and exception.The impact of historical narratives in national and social identities is reflected in a wide range of issues, including school curricula, heritage management, the organisation of academic departments, the presentation of Islamicate history and archaeology in the media and the politics of identity of majority and minority groups. The volume does not avoid these questions, but tackles them head-on, challenging the unwillingness of some academics to engage in potentially disruptive political issues.

The Byzantine-Islamic Transition in Palestine
The Byzantine-Islamic Transition in Palestine

Author: Gideon Avni

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2014-01-30

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 0191507342

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Using a comprehensive evaluation of recent archaeological findings, Avni addresses the transformation of local societies in Palestine and Jordan between the sixth and eleventh centuries AD. Arguing that these archaeological findings provide a reliable, though complex, picture, Avni illustrates how the Byzantine-Islamic transition was a much slower and gradual process than previously thought, and that it involved regional variability, different types of populations, and diverse settlement patterns. Based on the results of hundreds of excavations, including Avni's own surveys and excavations in the Negev, Beth Guvrin, Jerusalem, and Ramla, the volume reconstructs patterns of continuity and change in settlements during this turbulent period, evaluating the process of change in a dynamic multicultural society and showing that the coming of Islam had no direct effect on settlement patterns and material culture of the local population. The change in settlement, stemming from internal processes rather than from external political powers, culminated gradually during the Early Islamic period. However, the process of Islamization was slow, and by the eve of the Crusader period Christianity still had an overwhelming majority in Palestine and Jordan.

Arabia and the Arabs
Arabia and the Arabs

Author: Robert G. Hoyland

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-09-11

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1134646348

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Long before Muhammed preached the religion of Islam, the inhabitants of his native Arabia had played an important role in world history as both merchants and warriors Arabia and the Arabs provides the only up-to-date, one-volume survey of the region and its peoples, from prehistory to the coming of Islam Using a wide range of sources - inscriptions, poetry, histories, and archaeological evidence - Robert Hoyland explores the main cultural areas of Arabia, from ancient Sheba in the south, to the deserts and oases of the north. He then examines the major themes of *the economy *society *religion *art, architecture and artefacts *language and literature *Arabhood and Arabisation The volume is illustrated with more than 50 photographs, drawings and maps.

Early Islamic Syria
Early Islamic Syria

Author: Alan Walmsley

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2013-11-20

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 1472537769

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After more than a century of neglect, a profound revolution is occurring in the way archaeology addresses and interprets developments in the social history of early Islamic Syria-Palestine. This concise book offers an innovative assessment of social and economic developments in Syria-Palestine shortly before, and in the two centuries after, the Islamic expansion (the later sixth to the early ninth century AD), drawing on a wide range of new evidence from recent archaeological work. Alan Walmsley challenges conventional explanations for social change with the arrival of Islam, arguing for considerable cultural and economic continuity rather than devastation and unrelenting decline. Much new, and increasingly non-elite, architectural evidence and an ever-growing corpus of material culture indicate that Syria-Palestine entered a new age of social richness in the early Islamic period, even if the gains were chronologically and regionally uneven.